to sterilize, or not to sterilize?!

i am proud mumma to 'Peanut' (nickname, dont worry!) a beautiful seven-and-a-half month old little girl (who was the first leap year baby to be born here! )

after many discussions with my own mum, she suggested i try this website for help and advice with my parenting qualms!

basically as my daughter is now crawling, do i continue to steam sterilize all her bottles?!
she regularly crawls around, picks things up off the floor etc, so there is no doubt she is getting into germs and the like (as my home is not entirely sterile!)
I just wondered what other people have done and what is recommended?

And also, at what age did you stop using formula completely?
i breastfed at first, then went to formula after medical issues made this impossible. we had to alter formula due to allergies, but now im wondering when we can give this up all together, and go onto regular milk?

The problem is the formula can contain really dangerous bacteria and they multiply in the bottles and on any residue you don't completely get off because the milk is really nutritious for them. So bottles are potentially more dangerous than stuff she will find on the floor.

This is especially true if you ever make bottles up in advance, or even if you leave used bottles unwashed for an hour or two after use.

When she moved on to cows milk she was only on one bottle a day, straight from the fridge to a clean bottle, and then rinsed out when she'd finished before being washed thoroughly a bit later. But if anyone is worried then I would always advocate continuing to sterilise bottles.

Hi I have dd1 who is 2.5 years and dd2 who is 11 months (in three days time, wow! its gone so quick!) i stopped steralising dd1s bottles about 9 months and i also stopped doing dd2s bottles a few weeks ago. There both completley fine and healthy and like you said there picking everything up! they both started tring to eat my chocolate labrador as soon as they could crawl so i honestly didnt and dont see any harm in it. dd2 is still on formula as the do advise it for up until 12 months of age where then you can put them on full fat cows milk. dd1 didnt like cows milk but by 12 months had gone off milk anyway which im not suprised at drinking it for 12 months and its yack! i cant wait to try dd2 on cows milk in the next month and get rid of formula. if she doesnt like it like her sister didnt then ill put her back on formula until she decides she doesnt want it anymore. They do decide in there own time obviously i wouldnt be giving her formula at 2 lol! they usually grow out of it by 12 months or so anyway. Your meant to steralise spoons, dishes everything which i did for a while with dd1 but with dd2 i just thought no way its silly! a few germs wont hurt her and when the Health visitr gave me a tooth brush on her last check up she asked me to steralise the tooth brush before using each time! Iobviously didnt! Every parent is diffeent and you should do what you feel fit to do but i would advise to keep her on formula until 12 months xx

Cows milk shouldn't be given as a main drink till 12 months. It's fine to use in cooking or on cereal from 6 months though.

With the bottles, I sterilised DS's until he moved on to cows milk. As a pp said, there are particularly harmful bacteria that can multiply quickly in formula, which are much more dangerous than the typical germs found on the things they touch. I didn't find it a hassle to sterilise so figured it was safest to just keep doing it.

I will say what I did with my eldest because my youngest is only 6 months.

I stopped sterilizing around 10-11 months, although I think the guidelines were different then (they change so much I can't keep up lol). You are not meant to give cows milk until at least 12 months, it's really hard for babies to digest and can (and probably will) cause problems (upset tummy etc.).

With formula I stopped giving it at 12 (almost 13) months, I tried moving him on to the next stage and he wouldn't drink it, he wouldn't drink cows milk or normal formula then either so we stopped giving it to him, my health visitor said as long as he is getting plenty of dairy from other sources e.g yoghurts, then it would be fine, he would have milk in things like cereal but wouldn't have it on it's own, he still won't drink it now.

I was going to stop sterilising at 6 months (this seems to have been the norm in my family!) however DS was unwell at that time so I continued until 7 months old once the cold was well and truly out of our house - I caught it twice! - and have had no trouble since stopping.

Although it seems from the other replies that perhaps you should stop later, I think there is a degree of personal choice (as with any baby topic!) although I definitely wouldn't stop before 6 months!

Hi, I asked my health visitor the same question last week.
As has been said above, they recommend continuing to sterilise bottles until 12 months because of the bacteria from the formula milk. Beakers etc (which are used for water or juice) however are fine just to be washed with soapy hot water from 6 months...and tap water is fine to drink from this age aswell.
Again as has already been said, cows milk is recommended from 12months... I'm looking forward to that as will be soo much cheaper lol

as the others have said - crawling around and picking things up has nothing to do with the reason you sterilise bottles. formula milk can be harmful so you sterilise bottles to make the milk feed as safe as possible. picking bits of fluff of the floor does not expose your baby to the same risks as drinking formula from unsterilised bottles. you need to sterilise for the whole time you use formula milk - so if you continue to use growing up milks past 1yr old then you need to continue to sterilise until you switch to cows milk.

there are not enough nutrients in cows milk therefore babies must not drink it as their main milk drink until 12 months old. it is fine to give full fat cows milk in cereal from 6 months old and as an additional milk drink but baby must continue to have 500-600ml of formula until 12 months old.

I stopped sterilizing at 6 months and my dd is 7 and half months old. I sterilze the teats and wash the bottles in hot soapy water recommended by HV's and other mums. As long as the bottles/teats are thoroughly washed so no formula is left behind then they are fine

Hi, I asked my health visitor the same question last week.
As has been said above, they recommend continuing to sterilise bottles until 12 months because of the bacteria from the formula milk. Beakers etc (which are used for water or juice) however are fine just to be washed with soapy hot water from 6 months...and tap water is fine to drink from this age aswell.
Again as has already been said, cows milk is recommended from 12months... I'm looking forward to that as will be soo much cheaper lol

Urghh I wouldn't give my baby tap water, the water is horrible and very hard in this area (just outside London). Plus I always thought the bacteria in the formula was killed off by the boiled water, that kind of bacteria is a lot different to crawling around.

If I was going to be sterilizing teats, I would just sterilize the whole lot if it's going to be on anyway

I will be sterilizing until around 12 months anyway, and no water straight from the tap round here!

You have had a lot of helpful replies form the members who have explained why it is important to continue sterilizing bottles used for formula milk until 1 year. There is also information on your thread about using cows milk in food from 6 months and as a drink after 12 months...however, you say your baby is on a different formula due to allergies...is that right? Do you get the milk on prescription Kirstie?

we had to alter formula due to allergies

If your baby is allergic to cows milk you may need to continue with the special formula until 2 years of age. You may also need to exclude, or reduce the amount of cows milk in weaning foods and family foods that your baby is eating. Have you reviewed your baby's allergy with your GP recently?

Urghh I wouldn't give my baby tap water, the water is horrible and very hard in this area (just outside London). Plus I always thought the bacteria in the formula was killed off by the boiled water, that kind of bacteria is a lot different to crawling around.

If I was going to be sterilizing teats, I would just sterilize the whole lot if it's going to be on anyway

I will be sterilizing until around 12 months anyway, and no water straight from the tap round here!

Yeh the hv did say to only use tap water if its not too hard or smelly. Luckily our water is fine for him to drink and he hasn't had an upset stomach once since drinking it. I agree though that if the water was hard the. I wouldn't give it to my baby either.....and definitely not if it was smelly!yuk lol